MILWAUKEE — The decorated department store windows in downtown Milwaukee may now just be memories from holidays gone by, but a traditional sign of the season is back again for 2020, even in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.

"[...] With the holidays and Christmas, the talk was are we going to have people visiting us," Bret Clark, the General Manager for the Wisconsin Club told Spectrum News 1. "And we decided to go all out, all in with all the decorations we had in the past and show it off as best we can."

Built back in 1848 by Alexander Mitchell, a longtime banking and insurance baron in Milwaukee who'd go on to own the Milwaukee Railroad and be elected to Congress, the private Wisconsin Club took over the home more than 125 years ago. Just east of Marquette University, the club, which also owns an additional country club and golf course along Good Hope Road, began to deck the halls on Tuesday.

"Christmas and the holidays here at the club are very special," Clark said. "We decorate every part of the club and go overboard with it and make it very special for our families and their guests."

While the club and its amenities are private for the Wisconsin Club's roughly 1,300 members, crews work to decorate the exterior of the mansion and its original Belvedere and wrought iron fence between 9th and 10th Streets, spreading a little joy to the neighborhood where the home has sat for more than 150 years.

"We have the garland on all the railings out there and the beautiful Belvedere, we decorate that up and we've got the big tree over the fountain that can be seen from the streets," Clark said.

It's all a way to bring some joy into 2020, not just for members and the community, but also for the Wisconsin Club's employees.

"It means happiness. It means fun. It means excitement," Clark said. "Hopefully our members and guests can come and enjoy them and I know the staff-- it keeps their spirits up in these tough times and it's fun."